


A Cartography of Vulnerability

by subjunctive



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Crying, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, POV Sansa, Past Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Pre-Relationship, Scars, Season Six Compliant, Sibling Incest, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-25 22:53:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7550377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/subjunctive/pseuds/subjunctive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jon is the only one Sansa trusts to do this for her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Cartography of Vulnerability

**Author's Note:**

> Shippy stuff _slightly_ less ambiguous this time. Yay!

Sansa comes to his chambers long after dinner. There is nothing strange about it, she reminds herself: they are siblings, they have many years to make up for, and there is much grief to share between them, not to mention their shared management of the castle. No one will think it over-strange. It doesn’t quite allay the flutter of apprehension in her belly, however, and her knock is shy.

When Jon opens the door, his only shirt is his thin linen undertunic, and he flushes. “I thought there must be an urgent need so late,” he mutters and tugs on something more appropriate as she slips in and turns away politely. His embarrassment is a welcome distraction from her own, but it cannot last for long.

Her hands twist together, one finger over another until they are as knotted as her stomach.

“I’m decent,” comes from behind her. There is a worried crease in his brow as he regards her, rubbing a hand over his beard.

All the calm, steady words she has practiced for this occasion falter at the tip of her tongue, swallowed by her embarrassment.

Jon’s eyes drift down to the item she is clutching in her hand, then back up to her face. “Sansa?”

She wishes, desperately, she could turn away again and never be confronted by his face, full of such tender concern, again. It unseats her more than Ramsay’s derision and sadism, more than Petyr’s calculation and covetousness, more than the Northmen’s wariness and suspicion.

“I--I have a favor to ask of you,” she stammers, looking elsewhere, anywhere else.

“Anything,” he says easily, confusion evident.

His reply makes her smile, though briefly. _Oh, Jon, you should not say such things. Not even to me. Especially not to me._

She casts about for somewhere to sit and settles on the edge of his bed. 

“May I have some wine?” she asks.

“I assume that’s not the favor,” he says with a chuckle.

His curiosity burns, she can tell, but he is Jon and he is good so he will not press her. He pours her a glass of Arbor gold, and one for himself too, and his silence is companionable, though tinged with worry.

She drains half the glass in a few gulps--his eyebrows inch up--and, training her gaze on the fire, for that is the only way she will get through this, she says, “When I was with Ramsay, he hurt me.”

Immediately he squeezes her hand, his thumb mapping her knuckles as if he can transport his care through her skin. “Sansa, if you don’t want to talk about it, you needn’t.”

“No, I must.” She is already dizzy, for she didn’t much at dinner at the prospect of this very conversation. Liquid courage indeed, she thinks as she says, “You’ll know about the raping”--she’ll never call it anything but, marriage rights or no--“and I’m sure you’ll have guessed he beat me too.” Her words echoing in her ears are strangely flat, now that they’re coming out, almost casual. If only it were so.

“Sansa…” He sounds helpless, pained. 

She takes a deep breath, fills her lungs. It is easier to barrel past his discomfort than it was her own. She lived it; he can listen to it. “Sometimes he took a knife to me,” she adds, and lets the heavy dressing-gown fall from one shoulder. Underneath she has on only her nightgown, and she shifts the neckline aside and twists so he can see a spider-silver line.

His hand twitches in her grip, like he wants to reach for his sword. “Why are you telling me this?” he asks hoarsely.

“The maester gave me a balm, to make the scars more supple and comfortable in the dry winter. They itch something awful. But I can’t reach everything. Will you help me?”

She would never have asked if it was only the itching that bothered her, abominable though it is. Better to suffer such indignities in silence. But if they were to split and rend her open so she bled again, from all the same places, as if some part of him survived to trouble her yet, she doesn’t know if she could bear it. She doesn’t know she could survive.

He is hesitant. “Wouldn’t it be more proper for one of your ladies...?”

Proper, yes. Bearable, no. It is an option Sansa has already considered and discarded.

“They might talk. They already do,” she says softly, and this has not occurred to him: his eyes widen fractionally. 

“No,” he swears, “I’ll put a stop to it, I promise--”

He gives his promises so easily to her. “I trust you to do this. No one else,” she says simply, baldly, and she can see the acquiescence on his face. 

He nods as if taking on some solemn duty, and she puts her back to him, the act itself one of remarkable trust even if he doesn’t realize it. The weight of him dips the bed as he settles next to her. His fingers at the back of her neck sweep aside her hair and tuck it over her shoulder, and they are clumsy and slow as he unlaces the back of her thin nightgown. Sansa tugs the fabric down when she can, gathering it up at her front to preserve what little modesty she has left to maintain. An illusion, truly, but she can’t deny it’s a comforting one.

Behind her, a hiss: a breath sucked in through teeth. 

He _sees_ her, not just her scars but her pain and shame and weakness, and she hates it. But there is an unexpected euphoria in it too, in being so intimately visible.

“Is it that bad?” she inquires lightly, but her voice breaks, the traitor.

Jon’s breathing is rough and rapid, raising goosebumps on the back of her neck.

“I should have looked for you,” he whispers finally. “Fuck the Wall and fuck my vows. I should have ridden off. No matter how long it took. No matter if they took my head for it.”

He’s never been anything less than perfectly courteous in her presence, and his cursing now causes an odd warmth steal to over her. His words are a temptation to childish fantasy, she reminds herself, though it does not tamp out the glow entirely. She tries--she tries so hard--not to dwell on the _what-if_ , the _might-have-been_ , because there are so many she might lose herself in them, so she only passes the maester’s jar of balm over her shoulder.

“He said to rub it in thoroughly,” she murmurs, and he gets to work.

The first touch of the balm on her back is cool and she shivers, but it quickly warms. At first he is tentative, but then he too warms and his strokes become long and firm. Through his fingertips she can feel what she cannot see: the shape and length of each cut. _Healed_ , she reminds herself, _they are all healed and Ramsay is dead_.

Little by little he makes his way down her back, mapping all her scars and pressing deep circles into her skin. It’s almost painful but it’s a pleasurable kind of pain, so she doesn’t tell him. And oh, if only he could get underneath, inside somehow, fill up her hollows and push everything else out: the remnants of Ramsay, her own fears and nightmares, the sorrow and guilt that fester in her day by day. Her face grows hot. It must be the wine making her think such things.

Finally his fingers sweep over the small of her back and it is over, and she has a queer sense of disappointment. But Jon lingers. He presses his forehead to the back of her neck, and his hands fan out over her ribcage, gentle and strong, and gods, if only his grip could hold her together in truth, all the fractured pieces of her threatening to fall apart. With her eyes closed she can almost believe it.

She is shocked to feel dampness at her spine, taking away her breath. Jon Snow is weeping for her.

Her eyes prickle hotly. Sansa has shed no tears for herself or anyone since she entered the gates of Castle Black. She had thought all her tears dried up, and armored herself in anger and vengeance instead. But Jon’s tears for her move her more than anything else could.

She lets the front of her nightgown drop and seizes his hands in hers, lacing their fingers together and pulling his strong arms tighter about herself.

He shifts behind her, dropping kisses on her shoulders where before she felt his hands. On her scars. His fervency sends blood rushing through her in a staccato tempo. The hair on his arm brushes the underside of her breast. A thought rises unbidden: if she showed him the pale lines on the insides of her thighs, would he kiss those too? Would she feel the scrape of his beard there like she does now, half rough and half sweet? The thought sends a quiver through her, not of fear but something else, undefinable and new and fragile. Almost hopeful. Oh, how she aches for hope, so acutely it might be pain. She wishes she didn’t.

It is as if he wakes suddenly. His arms loosen and she lets them slip away from her, leaving her cold and bereft.

Jon clears his throat, but does not say anything. She can feel his hesitation in his perfectly still presence on the bed, his shame in his uncertain breathing. She could break him with a well-chosen word.

She doesn’t. She pulls her gown up, as if nothing strange has passed between them, and says only, “Lace me up?”

Her skin feels hot where he touches her. It takes him even more time than getting it off, but she is calm and steady and he takes his cue from her reaction. By the end things are almost normal between them.

She smiles and slips on her dressing-gown, kissing his cheek and breathing her thanks as she leaves. When she walks back to her rooms it is with steps unsteady with feeling. She knows she will return, even though she is frightened, for she has nothing to fear but love.

**Author's Note:**

> [I'm on Tumblr](http://subjunctivemood.tumblr.com) if you want to say hi there!


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